‘You go, Cynthia,’ said Celeste. ‘You go and then come back and tell me about it.’

Cynthia looked at her husband and shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter what I think, love, it’s what you think that matters.’

‘No, you go, Cynth. I’ll wait here with the kids, and Jimmy, Jimmy will stay here with me, won’t you?’ She didn’t want to be alone.

Cynthia walked out into her hallway and Jonny followed her. ‘If I go with you, we can come back and tell her how lovely it is, and then I can get her to come with me tomorrow, I’m sure of it.’

Jonny looked into her eyes and knew, as she did, that if they went to the house together they wouldn’t be doing much looking at it, not at first anyway. He felt the excitement in his groin and wondered at how such a change could come over a man.

‘If you think so.’ His voice was noncommittal; no one listening to them would ever guess at the turmoil inside him.

Cynthia was elated, she knew he was prepared for what was going to happen. ‘I’ll go and freshen up, get my coat.’

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Thirty minutes later they were naked, they were sweating and they were both aware that no one else would ever fulfil the strange need that they both shared.

‘Tell me, tell me what it was like to kill him, Cynth.’

As she bit into his shoulders and spewed her filth into his ears, Jonny Parker felt, for the first time in years, that he was well and truly, finally home. That he was betraying his wife, the so-called love of his life, didn’t bother him one iota. Every time he looked at Cynthia’s full breasts and long legs, he saw her kneeling down beside Kevin Bryant and taking him out once and for all. There was no woman on this earth who could compete with that, and they both knew it. They were a match made in hell, and the knowledge only made them desire each other more.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

‘It’s lovely, Celeste, I bet you’re glad you came home, aren’t you?’ There was genuine warmth in Cynthia’s voice and it wasn’t lost on anyone in the room. Even Jack Callahan was beginning to warm to this strange daughter of his. Jonny and Celeste’s house was like a mansion and, where normally that would eat at Cynthia like a cancer, she seemed to be genuinely pleased at her sister’s good fortune.

‘’Course I am, Cynth.’ It was forced and everyone ignored that fact.